


Summertime Swingset

by tsuwundere



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Character Study, Drabble, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Trust Issues, i totally wrote this to help me cope with something KJHDJKFG, i'm tired of writing angst i just want them to be happy, kokichi has no cool, like this is all just really soft indulgent shit, oumasai, saihara is just very gentle, saiouma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28407516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsuwundere/pseuds/tsuwundere
Summary: Shuichi presses for an honest conversation from a prankster that loves to speak in riddles.Despite their mutual shyness that manifests in such different ways, Shuichi finally earns himself a love confession to go with his.I.e, the most self-indulgent fluffy drabble I will probably ever write
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 139





	Summertime Swingset

“You brought me all the way here just for us to sit on a pair of swings?”

Kokichi’s tone was weary, but he had the widest, most entertained smile Shuichi had ever seen on his face as he tipped back dangerously on his swing, wind rushing through his plum locks as he tested said swing’s limits in both height and speed.

“No, I wanted us to talk.” Shuichi answered, poking a hole in his juice box with the straw that had come with it, taking his seat on the swing beside Kokichi now that his demands to be pushed higher had been met.

“We talk all the time!” Kokichi said, and Shuichi couldn’t help but chuckle. The volume of Kokichi’s voice had, in effect, halved with how fast he was swinging.

“That’s true, we do talk all the time. And yet, I understand none of it.” Shuichi pushed his own swing into a gentle rocking motion, his free hand on the chain closest to Kokichi. “Truth be told, Kokichi, you communicate like a donkey. I want us to have a proper conversation.”

“ _What_? Oh my God, stop this swing right now.” Kokichi was now leaning forward in an attempt to shift his weight to get the swing to stop.

Shuichi just laughed. “Touched a nerve?”

“You’re torturing my feelings here, Shumai!” Kokichi wailed, still struggling to settle the bumpy image of Shuichi beside him. “How could you? I put in so much effort to make you laugh, you know? You’re tearing me apart here with that donkey comment, Shuichi. I want you to apologise.” He signed off that Kokichi-typical spiel with a Kokichi-typical grin. As usual, he was just toying with him. Of course he wasn’t genuinely hurt, nor was he genuinely expecting an apology.

Shuichi reached to catch the wildly oscillating chain to help the purple haired boy decelerate, taking care to grab higher up where the chain was less likely to hurt his hand and less likely to lose enough momentum suddenly enough to force Kokichi off the swing.

The gesture earned Shuichi a whine.

“Hey, who told you to make it stop?” _Literally you, literal moments ago._ “You’re going to have to push me again now.”

“I’ll do it when we’re done talking,” Shuichi said in a compromise, which put a pout on Kokichi’s face.

Shuichi couldn’t help the fond smile that crept up onto his face. At one point, the way the wide-eyed, round-faced boy with the impish smirks constantly contradicted himself had been a source of frustration for Shuichi. He was far too playful, far too mischievous and full of far too much energy for someone who had been as introverted and earnest as Shuichi had been all his life.

But something had just… changed one day. The smile that had once been annoying to Shuichi after the prankster had done something like put grape soda in his coffee started to look… well, beautiful.

Shuichi rubbed his neck awkwardly. It was still just him with those feelings of his, but it was still sort of embarrassing to admit it, even to himself. Kokichi had a beautiful smile, and Shuichi had found himself addicted to the sight at some point.

“Whatever Shuichi wants, Shuichi gets, I suppose.” Kokichi said with a false roll of the eyes and a prompting smile on his face. “What is it that you so desperately need to know? Hey, if I refuse to talk to you, are you going to torture me? Is that why we’re out here so late in the evening with no-one else around?”

“It’s only six,” Shuichi pointed out flatly, glancing to a group of children playing with a ball in the distance somewhere in the direction of the setting sun.

Kokichi shrugged. “Doesn’t answer the question.”

“I suppose not. Well, I wasn’t considering it but now that you’ve brought it up; why not, right? I might torture you.” He shrugged, earning a fabricated gasp of horror from Kokichi. “But let’s not jump the gun. I haven’t even asked you the question yet.”

Kokichi pushed his swing into a rocking motion that matched Shuichi’s. “Well, what are you waiting for? What’s with all this build-up? Am I supposed to die of curiosity first? Chop chop, Shumai.”

Shuichi sighed. Somehow he was already exhausted and they hadn’t even begun yet.

“I’ve just been wondering for a while,” Shuichi began before the silence that ensued got awkward, “How you… um, how you feel about me.”

“How I feel about you?” Kokichi repeated after him. “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

Shuichi nodded, his cheeks burning as bright as the sunset in front of them.

“Well, obviously, I hate your guts. That’s why I go out of my way to get on your nerves so often. Are you finally taking the hint?” Kokichi was hiding half his amused smile behind his checkerboard-patterned scarf that he had brought up to his face.

“That’s a lie, right?”

“Ding ding ding! I’m actually in love with you.”

“That’s also a lie, huh?”

Kokichi didn’t say anything but his smile didn’t waver. “Well, it has to be one or the other right? I wonder which one it is.”

“Hey, Kokichi, you trust me, right?” Shuichi stopped rocking his swing to hold out his hand in the purple-haired boy’s direction.

Kokichi stopped his swing too. His expression finally sobered up into something a bit more serious, glancing between Shuichi’s extended hand and his face.

“I… I like you, Kokichi. Like, seriously. And I wanted… wanted to hear you be completely honest with me at least once before everyone splits up for college.”

Shuichi spoke over a small protest about how _come on, Shuichi, I’m always honest_ that came from the other boy. “I don’t mind what your answer is; you can tell me anything. Can I ask that of you?”

Shuichi’s voice was as gentle as his gaze on him, and it made Kokichi pull his own hand closest to Shuichi away and into the scarf at his chest.

There was a pause before he spoke.

“Well, if honesty is what you asked for then… I don’t trust you, and I can’t help but wonder what your intentions are right now.”

Shuichi let his hand fall, but he’d been prepared for this kind of answer, too. He watched the other boy on the swing, listening to every word intently.

“I guess even you have an ego on you, trying to coax a love confession out of someone right before you go off to college just to feel good about yourself, right? Because there’s literally no other point in chasing these kinds of loose ends if the foreseeable future is a 3-year dead end for those types of feelings.” Kokichi kicked a loose bit of concrete at his feet, sending it tumbling out of its spot and leaving a dent in the ground.

“…Well?” Kokichi prompted when Shuichi wasn’t saying anything.

“Well, you said so many wrong things there that I’m just trying to figure out where to begin.”

Kokichi scoffed, but the fact that he hadn’t just gotten up and walked away yet was a good sign. _Somehow_ , Shuichi thinks he’s fallen a little more in the last few minutes.

“First off, is this really the first time I’ve tried to… ‘ _coax’_ a love confession out of you? I can think of at least four other occasions where I’ve tried to have this conversation in the last few months,” Shuichi laughed a little at the thought. Kokichi always had his ways of wriggling out of Shuichi’s grip each of those times, always running off and leaving Shuichi with teasing quips – usually about what a nerd he was or whatever – and no hints to help him determine the answer to his all-important question.

“Secondly, yes, I’m leaving for college soon; I did mention that. And yes, I’m taking this final chance to talk to you about this but how could my intentions possibly be solely to make myself feel good if there’s always the chance of rejection?” Kokichi’s eyes widened for a moment before he glanced away, hiding as much of his expression as possible with a curtain of purple hair. Shuichi could still see the mysterious flush on his face though, with all its contrast against the cool tones of Kokichi’s skin and hair.

There was a pause before the gears turned in Shuichi’s head.

_Ah. Even Kokichi is susceptible to the classic Freudian slip. It seems there_ wasn’t _a chance of rejection._

There was a new, knowing grin audible in Shuichi’s voice as he continued. “Third, yeah, I agree – trying to nurture a new relationship with distance for 3 years is probably going to be tough. Calling it a _dead-end_ is a bit too pessimistic though, don’t you think? There’s always phone calls and holidays. My feelings for you have already grown so strong in these last few months, I’m willing to stick a promise ring on you before I leave even though this would be just the start. And I’ll take it off you when the 3 years are over, because by then I’ll be able to prove everything you’d ever be unsure about personally. But it’s all up to you. What do you think?”

Kokichi wasn’t saying anything, just manually rocking his swing with a little too much vigour. He was nervous.

“Kokichi?” Shuichi prompted softly, earning eye contact again.

“Huh? Wha— Give me a second, I tell so many lies that I think in them at this point and I can’t figure out what the truth is anymore right now.”

“It’s alright, take your time. I’ll wait – however long it takes.” Shuichi smiled warmly, which seemed to only have the opposite intended effect on Kokichi; he was now so worked up he was pulling at the chains on either side of him.

“Hey, will the promise ring have a diamond on it?” He said hastily, seemingly desperate to shift the tone of the conversation.

Shuichi mentally rolled his eyes. “The best I can do is real silver.”

“I’m only kidding, of course it won’t have a diamond on it. Ah, I’m so—! Shuichi, I don’t like this, and that’s the truth, okay? You’re going to pay for making me this stressed out. Honestly.”

It was simultaneously cute but also a little upsetting to see Kokichi like this. Of course, Shuichi’s intention going into this was never to make the smaller of the pair so uncomfortable.

“It’s okay if you’re confused or not ready or—” Shuichi was interrupted by the sound of mumbling beside him.

“Sorry, Kokichi, I didn’t catch that. Could you say that again?”

“You heard me,” Kokichi said in an accusatory tone, and Shuichi reiterated that he genuinely hadn’t.

Kokichi just sighed. “Never mind, it wasn’t important.”

“Hey, come on. Having someone mutter something and them then deciding they don’t want to say it after all is like, everyone’s number one pet peeve.”

“I _said_ , Shuichi, that I’m not confused. I adore you to pieces.” Kokichi declared in an exaggerated volume this time, and it was Shuichi’s turn to lose his cool. He had to fight every fibre of his being to not stick his blushing face in his hands and hide from the side of Kokichi he’d been trying to bring out for so long now.

“Do you mean that?”

“Nope!”

“…Is that a lie?”

“Yeah. Oh my god, Shuichi. Can you just read the room so we can move onto something else now already? I don’t need nor want a stupid promise ring, just a phone call every day.”

“I have read the room, Kokichi, it’s just only fair that I hear everything this important from you directly and honestly, you know? It’s really not good for either of us to work off of guesses and assumptions. It might be a little hard at the start but I think I’ll be able to quickly prove to you that trusting me is nothing to be afraid of,”

Shuichi offered his hand again, and this time Kokichi hesitantly took it. In quiet celebration, Shuichi squeezed the smaller hand in his and swung it between them gently.

“It’ll be really rewarding, I promise.” Shuichi had more to say, but Kokichi had a thousand-yard stare in the direction of their held hands and he figured it’d be best to let the boy process things one at a time before he short-circuited or something.

A satisfied smile spread across Shuichi’s face as the sun began to disappear completely behind the buildings of the town he and Kokichi had grown up in.

He’ll definitely be back after college.

He gave the trembling hand in his another firm squeeze.

Definitely.

**Author's Note:**

> i love them so mcuchhkjdfhg i love them i love them i'm so done with angst i'm broke n nw i'm a fluff machine saiou fluff ONLY fuck angst i'm so done with angst please happy saiou only EVER


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